Harish Rao: Water pumping to resume from Annaram & Medigadda soon

Hyderabad: Finance Minister T Harish Rao on Tuesday stated pumping would resume from Annaram and Medigadda pump houses by third week of September and October last week respectively. This respond comes after Opposition parties targeting the government over not supplying water from Kaleshwaram project for next four years.

The Minister also said that State government would not be spending even a rupee for repairs and other costs of the pump houses which got sub-merged during the recent floods in Godavari River. The entire cost would be borne by the agency as per Defect Liability Period norms, he said.

In a detailed explanation to the Members in the Legislative Council, the Finance Minister said sufficient water would be supplied to the farming community during the Yasangi season as was done in the past.

"The Central government should be ready to procure paddy from the State as there will be bumper production in the Yasangi season as well," Harish Rao said amidst thumping of benches by TRS members.

During a discussion on the impact of River Godavari floods occurred recently, the Finance Minister lashed out at BJP leaders both from the State and the Centre for indulging in mudslinging politics during floods. He ridiculed the BJP leaders' remarks that water cannot be supplied from Kaleshwaram project for the next four years, due to the damages incurred during the floods.

"Out of 21 pump houses in the Kaleshwaram project, only Medigadda and Annaram pump houses got submerged due to the flash floods. They will be operationalised in a few weeks," he added.

The pump houses got submerged after the motors inside the pump houses could not pump out the water, due to lack of power supply. This was mainly due to natural calamity and there was no human error, he explained.

However, all the expectations of the Opposition parties, which derived devilish pleasure due to submergence of the pump houses, would be dashed as the State government would resume water pumping at Annaram from this month end and Medigadda from October last week, he informed.

Earlier during the discussion, cutting across party lines, the members wanted a resolution to be passed in the Council requesting the Central government to merge back the five villages near Bhadrachalam in Telangana as they were merged with Andhra Pradesh during the State bifurcation.

The MLCs wanted the State government to demand the Union government for re-assessment of sub-mergence impact on Bhadrachalam due to backwaters of Polavaram project. They also insisted on a resolution to be passed in the Council demanding the Centre to extend immediate financial assistance to Telangana for the damages suffered due to heavy floods in River Godavari in July this year.